Summer at the Arctic Circle + A Recipe for Coconut Balls

Summer has finally arrived to the Arctic Circle! We've enjoyed the sunny weather, lush green landscape and outdoor activities: picking dandelions for salads, eating outside, kayaking,  hiking.
We have one more day left here in Finland before we head off to Southern France to visit my brother and then elsewhere in France for our honeymoon.

Before I start packing, I thought I'd share a few random photos from our time in my hometown, and a recipe for the coconut balls that were a huge success at our wedding! These balls are so tasty and everyone was surprised to find out they have no added sugar and no chocolate! They are certainly sweet with all the dried fruit, but tahini gives them a nice touch of savouriness. A word of warning, however, these are pretty addictive!

I love fresh dandelions! Both the flowers and the leaves are so tasty in salads.

Uncle trying to catch some fish...

I wish I could stay until the red currants are ripe!

View from a top. My home town.

A perfect spot for a picnic after a hike.

Coconut Balls

(makes about 20 small ones)

(recipe adapted from Me Naiset magazine)

100g soft dates

100g sun-dried apricots

50g raisins

50g coconut flakes (fine) + extra for rolling

50g finely chopped almonds or walnuts

2 tablespoons unhulled tahini

1. Combine all ingredients in a blender and process until coarsely chopped, but not too mushy. 

2. Roll into balls and roll each ball in coconut flakes. Refrigerate before serving. These will keep in the fridge for a 3 days.

Guest Post by Cherie Hausler from Scullery Made Tea

Hi friends!

I'm very excited to feature the first ever guest post here in Scandi Foodie! 

I met the wonderful Cherie Hausler from Scullery Made Tea at the Barossa farmer's market a couple of weeks ago. Cherie's teas and delicious home-made treats immediately caught my attention, and I was keen to find out more about her business and life in Barossa. 

I'm so happy to share Cherie's story and recipe for Wild home-cured olives with you. For further information about her business, and more of her delicious recipes, please visit her website at Scullery Made.

Thank you, Cherie!

I’ve caught myself writing my blog specifically for my Mum sometimes. Of course I love her dearly, but it’s more the fact that most of the time I imagine she’s the only one reading it. Actually if I was to be brutally honest with myself I’d have to admit my Mum doesn’t actually read every post either. Long and short of it is, that when Maria from Scandi Foodie sent me a super lovely email asking to guest blog for her I was initially just rapt to know my readership had managed to reach beyond my immediate relatives. Happy days.

So to recipe swaps… I was all geared up to do a chocolate self saucing pudding with spelt flour and rapadura sugar, coconut butter and raw cacao, you know, the kind of good-for-you-deliciousness Maria and I share a common leaning towards, but out on our little hill my husband and I woke up to a very sunny Barossa Sunday that had other plans in store. The road to great olives is paved with good intentions it would seem.

Every morning we walk past a disheveled gang of wild olive trees on our ritual start to the day, and have been eagerly watching the branches groaning under a bounty that is surely to be a season best, according to local ‘farmtalk’ - watching and waiting for the fruit’s colour change to yell ‘pick me!’ And today was that day; the very same that I had planned to dedicate to raw cacao pudding making. Our mantra of living according to the seasons and wildcrafting whenever possible, had my pudding coming in a clear second best to an entire year’s supply of organic, handpicked, homecured olives though. Plus, I figured olive hunting would be more indicative of life in our part of the world for those of you who haven’t yet managed some ‘local’ time in the Barossa. Olives in, pudding out. It seemed the only fair thing to do. So we threw on our backpacks and announced out intentions to our border collie, Stella, the-wildcrafting-extraordinaire, and the afternoon went something along these lines… 

PS. If you’re an olive fan, don’t ever let anyone put you off curing your own olives, they are absolutely worth the effort and with such a bumper crop this year you should easily find fresh olives at a Farmer’s Market if you don’t happen to have a gathering of wild olive trees within reach.

Wild Homecured Olives

Organic black olives

Rock salt

Extra virgin olive oil

Clean, decent sized bucket

1. Pick over the olives to pull out any leaves that may have jumped in to your bucket during harvesting and then fill up the bucket with fresh water. Larger olives can be pricked with a fork to speed up the curing process, but wild olives tend to be teensy so we didn’t bother with this step.  

2. Leave the olives to soak in the water for 3 days and then drain, refilling the bucket with a salty brine solution of 1 cup of rock salt per 2 litres of water. Leave in the brine for another 3 days and then drain again before returning to fresh water for the next 3 days. Repeat this process, alternating between the salt brine and fresh water for approximately a month, or until the olives have lost their bitterness.

3. Once the olives have cured to your taste, pack into sterilized jars and cover with extra virgin olive oil before sealing. Stored in a cool, dark place, the sealed olives will keep for at least 6 months. 

You can add orange zest or lemon, fresh thyme or rosemary, or perhaps some roasted garlic, but in our experience it’s always better to add any extras to your serving bowl of olives rather than during the jarring process. This helps enormously with avoiding the ultimate disappointment of proudly cracking open a jar of olives only to find our unwelcome friend ‘mould’ has come to visit. 

All photos by Cherie Hausler.

Greetings from South Australia - Part 2

As promised, here are some more photos from our trip to South Australia. We really enjoyed the diverse scenery, the wildlife and the culture, and we’ve been so lucky with the weather too – the crispy winter days have been just perfect! It’s been so nice just to warm up by the fire sipping a hot cup of tea or a big bowl of soup after a cold day outside.

In just a few days we’ve seen the famous wine regions, the iconic Australian countryside, the rolling hills and the beautiful coast lining the Southern Ocean.  We’ve visited numerous small country towns, all with a fascinating history and such a unique atmosphere. It’s been a perfect setting to relax and get away from Sydney’s hustle and bustle.

It’s been an unforgettable trip for all the above reasons made even more special by a proposal by my partner of five and a half years. Yes, we are getting married! The wedding will be held in a year’s time. This will give us and our family and friends enough time to prepare and join us on our special day.

Thank you all for your comments and thoughts on Twitter, I can really feel the love and I cannot thank you enough for your wishes!

Greetings from South Australia - Part 1

 Hello from South Australia!

 

We have really enjoyed our trip so far and have fully embraced the South Australian produce – the olives, olive oils, wines, cheeses and the seasonal fruit and vegetables have all been superior quality. It’s been so interesting to see the sort of community spirit that prevails around the small country towns and our visit to the famous Barossa Valley farmer’s markets was truly a wonderful experience. Despite the cool winter weather, the atmosphere at the markets was warm and welcoming and the locals and visitors alike clearly knew their local produce was well worth the trip to the weekly markets.

South Australia is famous for its wines and we found the most atmospheric and characteristic wineries tucked in the small towns. Everywhere you go you see endless rows of vineyards – all at this time of the year quite unattractively lifeless, however. I find it incredibly fascinating to meet so many people who are passionate about their produce and want to keep the artisan traditions alive.  I am more than happy to support these small stall holders and businesses.

 

Personally I have also enjoyed visiting the numerous antique shops scattered around the country towns. I have always been passionate about vintage items and I find it extremely fascinating to browse these shops and buy curiosities I couldn’t find in Sydney. It is also always such a pleasure to get to talk to the shop owners, especially those who have been in the business for decades. Their knowledge is just so admirable and they always have such interesting stories to share. Needless to say I am bringing back a lot of items I’ve sourced from the country towns we’ve visited so far.



We will continue our trip tomorrow, but I wanted to share some of the scenery and things we’ve experienced so far.  More photos to follow when we are back in Sydney!

A day at the National Park - Sydney scenery and wildlife

I thought I'd share a few photos with you from last Friday when my partner and I spent the day at the Ku-ring-gai National Park less than an hour's drive from where we live. It was a beautiful, sunny autumn's day and since we rarely get a chance to have a day off like this, we decided to spend time outdoors and do some light trekking and enjoying the nature and the scenery.

Sydney is surrounded by gorgeous beaches and large green areas and it is not hard to see why I fell in love with this city in the first place. On a sunny day like this one, Sydney is really showing off its best assets and the scenery takes my breath away every time. I think in Sydney you get a perfect balance of the city and the country. The countryside is a mere hour's drive away - you can visit farms, national parks and really get away from all the hustle and bustle of the city-life. On the other hand, Sydney also has all the benefits of a big city - museums, restaurants, speciality shops, and so on.

We were so lucky to be able to see so much wildlife on our day out. I always think it's a good sign to see the native flora and fauna  so close to a big city and surely as we entered the national park we saw swamp wallabies, one of them with a little joey in her pouch, kookaburras and even a young diamond python. It was so fascinating to see all these wild animals roaming free in their natural inhabitant.

I couldn't stop taking photos of the scenery and the animals. I took some video too which I've uploaded on VIMEO - so please go and have a look if you want to see more! In the mean time, I'm already planning my next mini-trip :-)

Time out

 

Our short get-away this weekend was everything we could have wished for. A simple road trip to the country-side where we could see the beautiful autumn colours, visit the local farms and pick some in-season fruit and nuts. We were lucky with the weather on Good Friday as it was a picture perfect autumn day - warm and sunny with the slightest breeze reminding us from the cooler season to come.

Buying fresh produce straight from a farm is a such a privilege for a city-dweller like myself. In the city I love visiting farmers markets whenever I can and buy produce from the local farmers. Visiting an actual farm, however, is a wonderful experience itself and I wish I could do it more often. I also love the warm-hearted community feeling in the small country towns. They are welcoming and friendly and supporting the small businesses makes me feel like I'm doing the right thing.

The apple season is at its peak so majority of the farms were selling mostly just apples. We did come across an old-fashioned unattended fruit stall where you could just pick a bucket-full of persimmons and leave the money in the tin. I adore this kind of honesty and trust - it is such a novelty nowadays.

The following morning dawned misty and rainy, but it was an atmospheric drive on the bendy roads through the native Australian bushland. We were up early and headed to a farm where we could pick our own chestnuts and, if lucky, find a few late-season walnuts as well.

At the farm we had a chance to chat with the farmer himself. He told us a bit about the farm and guided us to a tree that had the freshest chestnuts. I felt like I was back in my element, foraging, as I used to do so often back in Finland. We saw some gorgeous pine mushrooms, even nettles and dandelion that unfortunately were not suitable to eat at this time of the year. Chestnuts were plentiful and despite being slightly ill-equipped, we were able to fill our bucket in no time. 

As we were walking back to the gates, the farmer approached us with his big hands full of walnuts. He had gone out to pick them himself for us and I thought it was such a kind gesture. I have never tasted walnuts as delicious as these. The nuts were so fresh and clean, with not a hint of the rancidity many shop-bought walnuts may have. What a perfect way to end our trip!

With a freshened spirit I'll soon be back in my kitchen, cooking and bearing in mind where my food comes from and how it is grown.The little extra effort it might take to eat organic, locally grown food just makes it feel more special and more enjoyable.

I will use the chestnuts we picked to make these cakes, perhaps a soup and another savoury dish. I also cannot wait to try the recipes the farmer recommended.

I hope you are all enjoying your time out and doing things you don't normally find time for - spending time with your loved ones, trying new recipes or just relaxing. Enjoy! 

Nara and Osaka, Japan

Osaka has been the town where Mr Scandi Foodie spent the most time when he was visiting Japan as a kid. Thus, he had a lot of good memories of different places and we really enjoyed spending time with his relatives in Osaka.

There is definitely a different kind of atmosphere in Osaka compared to Tokyo, and the food is different too: in Osaka the food tends to be more "Kansai-type", more hearty and there are some dishes that we saw in Tokyo everywhere but were hard to spot in Osaka. Okonomiyaki is everywhere, and you must try them while in town! The okonomiyaki we tried came with all sorts of toppings: from salami to oysters, prawns and even spaghetti!

From Osaka, we did an overnight trip to Nara where we attended a historical festival and admired the Todaiji temple which is the largest wooden structure in the world. This town is also known for its deer and there are certainly many of them around!

The colourful outfits from different historical periods at the festival in Nara

Oden (a soup with fish cakes, daikon, boiled egg and konnyaku) and Zenzai (rice cake in green tea with red beans) were exactly what we needed after standing in the cold all day!

Festival food included these jumbo okonomiyaki, they were huge!

The freshest mochi; we watched them making these and they were delicious!

We enjoyed the most creative meal with my partner's relatives. Truly a one's in a life time experience! A multiple course dinner consisted of small dishes of fish, vegetables and tofu.

A little snowman made out of burdock, with skiis and all!

Sake with fugu fin is a must try when visiting Japan

We really had a lovely time in Osaka: great people, great food!